[In the following essay, Anderson contrasts Spencer's Italian novellas with the work of Henry James and surveys the critical reaction to Spencer's works.]

When Elizabeth Spencer arrived in Italy in 1953 after receiving a Guggenheim fellowship, she was already author of two successful novels and working on her third one. All three of these novels were set in the South and dealt with Southern characters and somewhat peculiarly Southern situations; however, her living in Italy and her marriage to an Englishman removed her more or less permanently from the Southern setting which provided the material for her first three books. The five or so years she spent in Italy were the strongest influence on her next two books—The Light in the Piazza and Knights and Dragons.

Miss Spencer's first important work written under the Italian influence was one of her greatest critical successes and certainly her most financially rewarding work. The Light in the Piazza, first published in The New Yorker and then as a separate book, became a best seller; was selected by both the Reader's Digest and The Literary Guild book clubs; was made into a motion picture; brought Miss Spencer the ＄10,000 McGraw-Hill Fiction Award; and has also been published in at least eight foreign language editions.

The Light in the Piazza was suggested to Miss Spencer by an incident she witnessed while traveling. She and her husband observed a woman whose daughter, while sweet and attractive, seemed retarded. The girl struck up and enjoyed, nonetheless, a flirtation with an Italian waiter. Miss Spencer's husband, John Rusher, remarked that, as far as Italy was concerned, there need be no check to the romance.¹ Miss Spencer has also stated that the germ of the book was a small incident that had occurred earlier in Florence where she had seen a young lady running across a piazza. From these two things Miss Spencer very quickly wrote The Light in the Piazza as “sort of an amusement.”² Somewhat ironically this “amusement” became a huge success and her best known work to date.

The Light in the Piazza was Miss Spencer's first book to be published in England, and it was readily accepted there in the New Statesman by Keith Waterhouse: “The Light in the Piazza is the first novel to be published here of an American writer who, judging from the mouth-watering review—extracts of her previous novels printed in the dust jacket, enjoys quite a reputation in the United States. It seems deserved. … This is a very-well-told story, very lucid and very smooth; although slight in treatment it has a good deal of substance to it. I hope this very short novel is a custom-raiser to more of Miss Spencer's work.”³ To the reviewer in the London Times Literary Supplement, “Miss Spencer handles the whole tragi-comic little tale with perfect taste and perception; she is never grotesque, because she combines a lyrical power for description with a salty sense of humor, and the sidelights on Italian manners and mores are wonderfully funny. This is a slight, almost evasive, but most appealing book.”⁴

In the United States, the book was highly praised, although some critics had reservations about it. It was inevitable that in the United States The Light in the Piazza would draw comparisons with or comments about the works of Henry James—if for no other reason than because Miss Spencer wrote of Americans in Europe, and especially because she wrote of marital arrangements between an American woman and a European man. Although the reviewer of Time was content to point out that it was a Jamesian situation,⁵ others such as Max Cosman indicated the similarity to Henry James and E. M. Forster.⁶ Granville Hicks stated that “The subtlety with which Miss Spencer makes the most of her little story reminds one of Henry James,” but the spirit of the book is perhaps closer to E. M. Forster.⁷ Some reviewers went into more detail in their comparisons, Susan M. Black pointed out not only that the theme was Jamesian but that the prose was also.⁸ Virgilia Peterson compared Clara, the young woman in Miss Spencer's book, with James's Daisy Miller.⁹ And Elizabeth Janeway, objecting to the ending, invoked the names of Henry James and E. M. Forster when she stated that they would have known better than to expect a happy ending.¹⁰

Although Miss Spencer intended to use The Light in the Piazza as the title story for a collection of short stories she wanted published, her publisher, McGraw-Hill, preferred to bring it out in a separate volume.¹¹ Too long for a short story and too brief for a novel, The Light in the Piazza fits ideally into the novella category with its limited number of characters, its brief time span, and its straightforward plot line.

Margaret Johnson, a comfortably well-off woman from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is vacationing in Italy with Clara, her twenty-six-year-old daughter, who has the mentality of a ten-year-old child because of a childhood injury. In Florence, a young Italian shopkeeper falls in love with Clara and, because of the language difference, is unaware of Clara's mental condition. When he becomes seriously interested in marrying Clara, Mrs. Johnson finds herself in quite a dilemma: she vacillates between telling the truth about Clara and allowing the marriage to take place. All attempts to get advice from others fail, and each time she decides to reveal the truth, something interferes to prevent such action. Ultimately, she decides that Clara is capable of everything that would be expected of an Italian wife; in Italy, she sees Clara's situation in a light different from the way it would appear in America; and, consequently, the marriage does take place—after she considerably increases the amount of Clara's dowry.

Aside from Margaret Johnson's internal struggle, a second conflict involves the traditional confrontation of American innocence and naivete with European ruthlessness and practicality. But times have changed since the nineteenth century, for the American no longer has the innocence of Daisy Miller nor the conscience of Christopher Newman. And no longer is the American goal the romantic one of obtaining for a rich daughter a title of a high social position. It is not necessary for the American matchmaker to be a long-time resident of Europe accustomed to the ways of European aristocracy, and it is no longer necessary that the deception be all on the part of the European family.

In the post-World War II era, titles are somewhat passe: and Americans are more capable of dealing with Europeans on equal terms. Throughout the book, Mrs. Johnson's awareness of Italy and the different light makes her realize that the values of Winston-Salem are not necessarily the values of the world; and, when in Italy, it is perhaps best to do as Italians do. Thus she ultimately allows the emotional Italian influence to conquer her own nature and to dominate her Anglo-Saxon logic.

In The Light in the Piazza, Margaret Johnson is a fairly typical upper-middle-class American wife from Winston-Salem. She is not the helpless-female type, but a woman who is usually capable of efficiently and straightforwardly handling any situation that arises. When necessary, however, she is capable of meeting any kind of opposition in whatever manner required. And subterfuge becomes necessary in her dealings with Signor Naccarelli, the “representative Italian, logical mannered, capable of the devious, and a true bourgeois, sensitive to the main chance.”¹² Throughout the book Signor Naccarelli and other members of his family are observed engaging in questionable actions in order to advance their own ends. Although the duplicity of the Italians may have justified to Mrs. Johnson her attempt to marry Clara to Fabrizio Naccarelli, Miss Spencer makes no attempt to defend either party.

Unlike typical Jamesian characters, the Johnsons are not in Europe seeking culture or a higher society than they could find in America; but Margaret Johnson is in Florence because she has fled there with her daughter, Clara, in order to avoid embarrassing situations brought about by Clara's mental condition. (The last straw has been Clara's flinging her arms around the grocery boy back in Winston-Salem.) The fact that Clara is an attractive young woman who is likely to be pursued by young men makes Mrs. Johnson's problems even more difficult. From the first scene Clara is pursued by Fabrizio Naccarelli, the owner of a men's clothing shop in Florence, who manages to appear at practically every spot where the Johnsons do. Even when Margaret Johnson deliberately tries to avoid him, he manages to appear; and, to make matters more difficult, Clara seems to enjoy his presence and even to encourage him.

After seeing Fabrizio's determination when he manages to join them for dinner after Margaret's deliberate attempt to avoid him, she begins to weaken in her resolution to prevent an entanglement between Clara and Fabrizio. When at dinner she sees them looking “like two children,” she thinks to herself, “Why not?”¹³ After all, they seem to be perfectly suited to one another. From this moment on, Margaret is troubled by the questions she keeps asking herself: Should she permit Clara and Fabrizio to marry? How can she keep them from marrying? How can she keep the Naccarellis from discovering the truth about Clara before the marriage takes place?

Margaret has reservations from time to time, but she becomes determined that the couple marry. She apparently has two reasons for her decision: she loves her daughter and wants her to be happy, but she seems at times to wish to be rid of the burden that has bothered her for years. Even when she tries to work against the marriage, she finds that she is actually bringing the young couple closer together. When she awakens the morning after the dinner with Fabrizio, Margaret has her first doubts. Deciding that she must have had too much wine the night before, Margaret concludes that they must leave for Rome in a day or two. But, as always the case when she has doubts about the match, something happens to keep her from doing anything that would actually prevent the marriage.

When she takes Clara swimming, Fabrizio is also there. Taking the passive approach, Mrs. Johnson assures herself that Fabrizio will become aware of Clara's condition and that things will take care of themselves sooner or later. Clara could “never play long without growing hysterical, screaming even” (26). Margaret thinks the moment has come when at the pool Clara “collapsed into laughter, gasping, her two hands thrust to her face in a spasm” (26). However, when Fabrizio comes to her, she immediately straightens up and becomes quiet. At this point Margaret realizes that she certainly must put an end to this romance, but she still makes no effort to do so because she realizes at this same moment that Clara and Fabrizio may be ideally suited for each other.

At this point, Margaret Johnson begins treating the matter as she feels an Italian would. Miss Spencer seems to imply that the fact that Margaret is dealing with Italians on their own terms somewhat justifies her actions. The reader has already observed Fabrizio's scheming on a small scale, and he sees even more of his, and especially, his father's duplicity. Unfortunately Mrs. Johnson is incapable of maintaining an Italian attitude for any extended period of time and often lapses into a middle-class-American viewpoint. As the fourth chapter begins, she again appears to want the relationship to end without Fabrizio's discovery of Clara's condition. She decides to keep a close watch on Clara and to make sure that she does nothing wrong until Fabrizio tires of her. But even in this action she is unconsciously furthering the cause of the marriage: Fabrizio's mother, who is suspicious of foreigners, approves of the closely guarded American girl.

When the Johnsons meet Signor Naccarelli, he gives a somewhat outdated and set speech about how he likes Americans and detests Germans, and he does so in order to gain time to assess the Americans. Because he appears intelligent to Mrs. Johnson, she again feels something “between disappointment and relief” (30); she thinks that he will quickly detect Clara's condition. But if he does ever detect the truth, he never even hints that he does. When the Signor invites the Johnsons to a festival which is supposed to be a religious one but is held mainly for the sake of the tourist business, the Signor drops hints that the Johnsons should stay in Florence for a while in order to let the romance develop into marriage; but he does not at any time suggest the possibility of marriage. At the festival Mrs. Johnson's American conscience again prompts her to reveal all and end the affair; but, just as she is going to explain, an accident occurs, and she never tells Signor Naccarelli about Clara's problem.

As Clara gains more control over Fabrizio, she becomes more difficult for her mother to control. She appears more devious—perhaps more Italian. Although she is difficult for Mrs. Johnson, she appears when around Fabrizio to be “gentle, docile as a saint, beautiful as an angel” (42). When almost in desperation Margaret Johnson seeks advice from others—a crew-cut young American in a seersucker coat at the American consulate who cannot even listen to her, and a Scottish Presbyterian minister who listens too well but can offer no advice—all she gets is another unpleasant look at Italian character when she is over-charged and insulted by a taxi-driver. She becomes disgusted with Clara's actions, but she can turn to no one for help—especially her husband who is too busy with his tobacco business in Winston-Salem. Although Mrs. Johnson finally decides to take Clara to Rome and put an end to the situation, Rome is not far enough from Florence; and it is not long before the Johnsons return to Florence. In Rome, Mrs. Johnson recognizes that Clara has become a woman, for she observes how “something of a warm, classic dignity had come to this girl, and no matter whether she could do long division or not, she was a woman” (59). She also knows enough about human nature to know that all individuals involved would, in the end, “serve their own best interests” (65). The Johnsons would be glad for Clara to marry and live her own life—even if it were somewhat limited; the Naccarellis would be glad for their son to marry the beautiful, rich, and properly reared American girl; and Clara and Fabrizio would be quite happy with each other.

One of the greatest remaining obstacles to be overcome by Margaret Johnson is her husband, Noel. In a letter to him, Margaret rationalizes:

The thing that impresses me most, Noel … is that nothing beyond Clara ever seems to be required of her. Young married girls her age, with one or two children, always seem to have a nurse for them; a maid does all the cooking. There are mothers and mothers-in-law competing to keep the little ones at odd hours. I doubt if these young wives ever plan a single meal.

Clara is able to pass every day here, as she does at home, doing simple things which please her. But the difference is that here, instead of being always alone or with the family, she has all of Florence for company and seems no different from the rest.

(72)

She informs Signor Naccarelli: “I do not intend to leave again … until Clara and Fabrizio are married” (69). But, after talking to her husband by phone, Margaret leaves the matter up to him to handle and is relieved to be rid of the responsibility. However, after thinking things over, she decides that her husband would only spoil the possibility of the marriage. She decides to go through with the marriage before he can get to Florence—probably to stop it.

The final problem to be solved concerning the marriage is a rather revealing one from which the reader learns more about the duplicity of Signor Naccarelli and about the determination of Mrs. Johnson. When the signor decides to cancel the wedding when he finds out that Clara is older than Fabrizio, he tells Margaret that he has just found out that Clara is twenty-six, while Fabrizio is twenty-three (actually Fabrizio had earlier informed his father of the age difference). However, after a private discussion with Margaret and a promise of raising the dowry from five to fifteen thousand dollars, the wedding takes place. After the wedding, Margaret Johnson feels that she has done her job and done it well. “She had played single-handed and unadvised a tricky game in a foreign country, and she had managed to realize from it the dearest wish of her heart” (107). She also knows that she and Signor Naccarelli have been playing a game, and she wonders, “Which of us came off better?” (108) But no matter who came out better, she knows that she did the “right thing” (110). Whatever happens to Clara and Fabrizio after the wedding is another story, but one wonders whether Margaret Johnson has washed her hands of the affair or whether she will be lingering somewhere in the background ready to handle any crisis that might arise in the lives of the young couple.

The theme of The Light in the Piazza is certainly in the tradition of Henry James and, one might add, of Edith Wharton: the pursuit and marriage of a beautiful rich American female by a young Italian male. Although the conflict between the two families is not necessarily brought about by the differences between American and Italian cultures, it is resolved by these differences. Either the differences between the two cultures keep the Italians from discovering the truth about the American girl, or a difference in values permits the Italian parents to allow the marriage even if they do know the truth about the girl. In most of the James Wharton novels or stories, the American is usually incapable of understanding social nuances of the Europeans on their own terms. In the James-Wharton stories the Americans usually fare second best in marriage arrangements with Europeans; but in The Light in the Piazza one feels that, if Mrs. Johnson has not bested the Naccarellis, she has at least fared equally well and to some extent succeeded in fusing the two worlds.

Elizabeth Spencer's next book, Knights and Dragons, published in 1965, was a novella of approximately the same length as The Light in the Piazza. Like the earlier book, Knights and Dragons deals with fewer characters and contains fewer “stories” than did Miss Spencer's first three novels; but, unlike her earlier novella, the basic conflict is not between Americans and Italians since the Italians with whom the Americans come into conflict usually play minor roles in the unfolding drama. Again, as in The Light in the Piazza, the struggle is primarily within the mind of the heroine; however, the plot in Knights and Dragons is developed by characters and incidents that help portray the inner struggle of Martha Ingram.

Martha Ingram, who works for the United States cultural office in Rome, went to Italy to escape from her husband, Gordon, whom she divorced after ten years of marriage. Gordon Ingram, we are told, is a “thinker, teacher, scholar, writer, financial expert,”¹⁴ and he was supposedly “at one time a leading American philosopher” (131). But, as he is revealed through Martha and through his reported actions, he appears to be some sort of a demi-devil who is almost supernaturally capable of haunting Margaret although they are three thousand miles apart. Apparently during the ten years of their marriage Martha had not been very happy: “‘She had lived out a life of corners, and tiny chores had lengthened before her like shadows drawn out into a sunslant; she had worn sweaters that shrank in the back and coloured blouses that faded or white ones that turned grey, had entertained noble feelings toward all his friends, and tried to get in step with the ponderous designs he put life to, like training hippopotami to jump through hoops’” (9). Even in Rome, Martha cannot escape her ex-husband; he manages to keep himself in her mind in numerous ways—some contrived by him, some, in Martha's own mind. He worries her with letters, clippings, visitors, and even empty envelopes. And, to make matters worse, Martha is constantly reminded of him by people and things. The harder she tries to forget, the more she remembers; and she feels “trapped in hatred.”

As the book begins, George Hartwell, her boss and friend—“a faithful-dog man friend”¹⁵ as Stanley Kauffman put it—sends her to Genoa to meet two American families who have come to Italy as part of the cultural exchange program: Richard Coggins, an opera expert; his wife, Dorothy; and their daughter, Jean; James Wilbourne, an economist; and his wife, Rita, who actually does not arrive until two weeks later because they “couldn't afford it” (12). After a few weeks of touring, the group arrives in Rome.

In December, Martha and Jim Wilbourne accidentally meet one night and have a drink together; and in spite of the fact that Martha knows Jim is a liar and a somewhat crude opportunist, she ends up having an affair with him. Jim, who knows that Martha is haunted by Gordon's memory, realizes that she desires the affair with him to get rid of Gordon's memory, which she does. After the Wilbournes return to America, Martha receives word that Gordon Ingram has died. With Ingram dead and with Wilbourne in America, Martha is free; but “she was of those whom life had held captive and in freeing herself she had met dissolution, and was a friend now to any landscape and companion to cloud and sky” (169).

Although this novel was not so widely reviewed as The Light in the Piazza, reviewers again mentioned Henry James when they spoke of Knights and Dragons, but not so much as they had about the earlier novella. While Rosemary E. Jones¹⁶ and Granville Hicks¹⁷ pointed out that Miss Spencer's prose resembled that of Henry James, Miss Jones did not mention any other resemblance to the work of James; and Hicks contrasted Miss Spencer's characters with those of James:

Miss Spencer has adopted the Jamesian theme of Americans in Europe; but it must be understood that these are modern Americans, Americans of World War II: all of them are in Europe on some sort of official American business. Henry James, whose Americans came to Europe with large fortunes or, sometimes, barely adequate savings, would have been fascinated by this new type of traveler.

James' Americans soon encountered Europeans of one sort or another, and as a rule, it was in confrontation that he found his drama. Miss Spencer's cast of characters, on the other hand, contains not a single European character.¹⁸

Although both Hicks and Marilyn Utter¹⁹ question the effectiveness of the Italian setting, Hicks adds that “the action might have taken place in New York City or in Tokyo.”²⁰

The reviews of Knights and Dragons ran the gamut from good to rather poor. Marilyn Utter called it “highly satisfactorily.”²¹ Granville Hicks saw it as a “further development of Miss Spencer's work and felt it “surprisingly strong.”²² On the other hand, Stanley Kauffman saw Knights and Dragons as a “further deterioration” of Miss Spencer's writing which had begun in The Light in the Piazza.²³ Critics between these extremes had good opinions about some aspects and bad ones about others. In general, Miss Spencer was praised for her prose style but criticized for the shallowness of the work and for the lack of good characterization.

Although not her first long work set in Europe, Knights and Dragons is Miss Spencer's first work that portrays a variety of American types in Europe. Some critics have indicated that there are not really any Italians in the story, but we do have the suggestions of a few typical Italian characters—especially the ones that Americans in Italy might have to deal with. The two noticeable ones are the woman who owns the shop where Jean Coggins works and the Wilbourne's landlord. Neither of these characters is very clear, but we do see how their characters differ from the Americans in the story whose characters may be categorized in different ways but who quite generally fall into three groups. The first group might be classified as the modern, middle-class version of the Europeanized American expatriate that Henry James often portrayed. However, these people are not the very rich ones of James, and they are not so anti-American as are many of such Jamesian characters. They are merely Americans who have worked in Italy long enough to understand much about the country and to lose some of the obvious American veneer that the newly arrived Americans have. They dress as the Italians, speak Italian, and they understand Italian people and their ways. The two prime examples of this group are George Hartwell and Martha Ingram. Hartwell is Martha's superior at the United States cultural office; his wife Grace is excessively nice and wants everyone to be happy. George, who is from Missouri, has been educated at Harvard and Oxford and is, consequently, cosmopolitan. Martha also has apparently been in Italy long enough to be Italianized: she knows Italian, buys her clothes in Italian shops, and understands Italian people; but she longs at times for such American things as hamburgers and milkshakes. The impression one gets about Martha is that she has fled from America and from the memory of her ex-husband rather than to Italy.

The next type of American in Italy is exemplified by the Wilbournes: they are so stubbornly American that they continually run into conflict with Italian people and customs. Jim Wilbourne, a young American economist who is not yet thirty years old, has been given a grant to spend a year in Italy. In appearance he is typically American: “Tanned, solid, tall, dressed even to his watchband with a sort of classical American sense of selection, he was like something handpicked for export” (23). But Jim is not exactly open-minded in his attitude toward the Italians. He does not like the “scarcely concealed fascism” (20) of Italy, and he feels that the only reason Italy is on the side of the United States is because of all the foreign aid the United States gives Italy. In their personal relations with the Italians, the Wilbournes are not successful. Almost from the beginning of the book Jim “angrily” complains about being overcharged on the launch from the station (49); moreover, a constant quarrel exists between the Wilbournes and their Roman landlord, who tries to raise their rent. There is a squabble with the landlord's cousin over his chickens: “When the Wilbournes got an order through the condominio to remove the chickens, they (the cousin) put some ducks there instead” (133); but then the Wilbournes kill and eat the ducks. The Wilbournes also argue with the power company over their electric bill. The health of the Wilbournes even deteriorates in Italy. Rita Wilbourne has a miscarriage in Rome, and the Wilbournes are “always in the thick of illness” (111).

Although Rita Wilbourne does make ceramics, Jim does not care for art; he prefers visiting industries. To make Jim a worse character, he is apparently moody and ill-mannered. He is also a “sort of habitual liar” (53) who tells Martha Ingram that her ex-husband was in an accident and that he, Jim, was in love with Jean Coggins. And pretending to be self-sacrificing, he persuades George Hartwell to recommend him for an Italian government grant to study the economic picture south of Naples; but, instead of accepting the grant, he uses it “to land his fat job back in the States” (126). Unfaithful to his wife, Jim makes a brief attempt in Venice to seduce Jean Coggins; and, as noted before, he and Martha have an affair in Rome.

Italy does not do much for the Wilbournes; when they leave, Jim realizes that he has done nothing to be proud of in Italy. Near the end of his stay in Italy, Jim Wilbourne reflects what Italy represented to him:

Jim Wilbourne, fresh air from the portone fanning his winterpale cheeks, thought for the first time in months of shirts that never got really white, and suits that got stained at the cleaners, of maids that stole not only books but rifled drawers for socks and handkerchiefs, of rooms that never got warm enough, and martinis that never got cold enough, and bills unfairly rendered, of the landlord's endless complaints and self-delighting rages, the doctor's prescriptions that never worked, the waste of life itself to say nothing of a fine economic theory.

(142)

In contrast with the Wilbournes are the Cogginses who are so overjoyed with Italy that they try to adapt themselves to Italian ways. Richard Coggins, somewhat older than Jim Wilbourne, is, of all things, an American expert on Italian opera—a position which Italians could have viewed antagonistically. However, because of the Cogginses' love of Italy, they fare much better than the Wilbournes. While Wilbourne complains of being overcharged, Mr. Coggins is delighted with the prices. And in Venice, before they even get to Rome, they inform Martha Ingram that, since coming to Venice, “they have been able to relive in great detail, vividly, their entire past lives” (34). Richard Coggins, who becomes the “success of the entire program” (43), is invited to address the opera company in Milan, and his lectures are fully attended by an audience that cheers and cries approval. And in direct contrast with the Wilbournes, the Cogginses' landlord “brought them fresh cheeses from the country, goat's milk, ropes of sausage” (49). And when they leave, they leave triumphantly; they are loaded with gifts, awards, and citations and are “waved off at the station by contingents of Roman friends.” (161)

Through these characters, Miss Spencer is able to present an up-to-date view of Americans in Europe. Richard Coggins is the opera expert, who, in the eyes of Martha, has a great deal of nerve in coming to Italy to teach Italians about opera; yet he becomes such a success that he is very popular with the Italians. One might think here of James's Daisy Miller where the Americans in Europe are the ones who have the lowest opinions of other Americans who have more recently arrived there. One might also think of Daisy Miller herself when he sees Jean Coggins, the daughter, who is rather popular with young Italian men, somewhat contemptible of conventional behavior, somewhat harmlessly dishonest, and yet as innocent as Daisy. Jim Wilbourne tells Martha that he has found out from the maid: “Jean Coggins … has a lot of boyfriends but never gets to bed with any of them” (55). However, Italian opinions of Americans in Italy hit a rather low level because of the behavior of the Wilbournes.

Unfortunately, Knights and Dragons is not an exciting book. Perhaps her removal from the Southern environment had its effect on Miss Spencer's writing. Whatever the cause, the influence of Henry James and Miss Spencer's excellent prose did not compensate for the lack of good characterization and dullness of the book.

One of the troubles with most book reviewers is that they seem compelled to show how one writer is similar to, and too often influenced by another. Most Southern writers (according to reviewers) are invariably compared to William Faulkner. And just as inevitably, any American writer depicting Americans in Europe, especially if his works are not filled with sex and violence, is compared with Henry James. Consequently, it is hardly suprising that reviewers would compare The Light in the Piazza and Knights and Dragons with works by Henry James. What is surprising, however, is the fact that reviewers have not bothered to contrast these two authors' works when there are many more differences than similarities in the two writers' works. The similarities between the two writers may be briefly stated: The Light in the Piazza concerns Americans in Europe, an international marriage with marriage arrangements. Knights and Dragons contains Americans in Europe and some minor conflicts between American and Europeans. Both novels have a subtlety that is characteristic of James, but also of many other writers.

On the other hand, the differences are many. Times and people have changed considerably since Henry James portrayed aristocratic Americans who were starved for culture, society, and titled marriages. Today's Americans in Europe, at least in Miss Spencer's novellas, are seeking escape, not relationships. Martha Johnson flees from an embarrassing involvement; and Martha Ingram, her ex-husband's influence. None of these characters are members of James's aristocracy but of the American working middle class. They do not seek culture and art; indeed they hardly seem aware of these. Nor do they seek marriages with Europeans; indeed, they try to avoid them. And when an international marriage does take place, it is between an American tobacco manufacturer's daughter (not from New York or Newport, but from Winston-Salem) and an Italian shopkeeper, and involves a mere fifteen-thousand-dollar dowry. The American characters are not the innocent Daisy Millers or the conscience-controlled Christopher Newmans. Clara Johnson has already been involved with at least one young man; Margaret Johnson does tangle with her conscience, but her decision is ultimately based on practicality and convenience; and Martha Ingram is a woman experienced in male-female relationships. The Jamesian conflict between American and European cultures, which usually causes the difficulties for his characters, is seen only in minor incidents in Knights and Dragons—specifically in a conflict between the Wilbournes and the Italians who serve them, the taxi driver, the landlord the power company. There is no difficulty between other American and Italian characters. And while most of James's American characters are incapable of understanding Europeans and dealing with them without coming out on the losing end, Margaret Johnson understands Italian characters and their motives very well; and she is not only capable of holding her own with them, but of besting them.

A close examination of these two Italian novellas of Elizabeth Spencer reveals that there is in essence no Jamesian influence in these works. At best, similarities are minor and even superficial. One could just as easily claim that these works were strongly influenced by Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, or Lillian Bell as he could claim the Jamesian influence. The fact that Elizabeth Spencer has portrayed post-World War II Americans as she has observed them in her own experiences, not by direct or indirect reference to Henry James's or any other writer's perceptions of Americans abroad.

Notes

1. Interview with Miss Spencer by the author, March 6, 1970.

2. Josephine Haley, “An Interview with Elizabeth Spencer,” Notes on Mississippi Writers, I (Fall, 1968), 53.

3. “New Novels,” New Statesman, LXI (March 31, 1961), 521.

4. “Backward and Forward,” Times Literary Supplement (March 24, 1961), p. 189.

5. “No Magnolias in Florence,” Time, LXXVI (November 21, 1960), 108.

6. “Notable Novellette,” Commonweal, LXXIII (January 13, 1961), 417-418.

7. “Morality Play in Two Acts,” Saturday Review, XLIII (November 26, 1960), 18.

8. “A Dream in Italy,” The New Republic, CXLIII (December 5, 1960), 143.

9. “In Florence, A Curious Encounter,” New York Herald Tribune Lively Arts (November 27, 1960), p. 30.

10. “For Better and Worse” New York Times Book Review, November 20, 1960, p. 6.

11. Interview with Miss Spencer by the author, March 6, 1970.

12. “Notable Novellette,” p. 418.

13. Elizabeth Spencer, The Light in the Piazza (New York, 1960), p. 21. Further references to The Light in the Piazza will be to this edition, and page numbers will be cited in context.

14. Elizabeth Spencer, Knights and Dragons (New York, 1965), p. 5. Further references to Knights and Dragons will be to this edition, and page numbers will be cited in context.

15. Stanley Kauffman, “Sense and Sensibility,” New Republic, CLII (June 26, 1965), 28.

16. Commonweal, LXXXIII (October 22, 1955), 107.

17. “Official Business in Rome,” Saturday Review, CLVIII (June 26, 1965), 25.

18. Ibid.

19. “No Thanks for the Memories,” Christian Science Monitor, July 1, 1965, p. 11.

20. “Official Business in Rome,” p. 25.

21. “No Thanks for the Memories,” p. 11.

22. “Official Business in Rome,” p. 25.

23. Kaufmann, p. 27.